PHOENIX — Authorities say a girl abducted from California nearly seven years ago when she was an infant has been found living in Phoenix.

Detectives from the Phoenix Police Department's Missing Persons Unit, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office and the FBI located the 7-year-old girl Wednesday afternoon at a north Phoenix house. Authorities say a woman was trying to hide the child in a bathroom shower under a pile of clothes and towels when investigators searched the house under a court order.

The girl's name was not immediately released, but police say she was abducted when she was less than a year old from Norwalk, Calif., during a noncustodial visitation.

Authorities say the girl has been kept out of schools and her name and birth date had been changed. Footprints, photographs and DNA swabs were taken of the girl to confirm her identity.

The child was reported to be in good physical condition and was being returned to California on Wednesday night.

Wow.. unbelieveable... What a sad story.. this poor little girl has only known her abductor since she was 1 yr old..... She is now 7... Her whole world is going to be so mesed up.. Unlike Jaycee, it is said that this girl was well cared for... Unbelieveable.,..

The investigation in this story was the same as what we saw in the Misty case as well as the Kyron case... Amber was taken from a chucky cheese restaurant in broad daylight.. This girls aunts were arrested for this crime... one other aunt was accused and is still on the run...

This is a great example of narrow minded LE who get distracted and never leave room for the idea that other ppl have motives to take children... this is an example of high risk abduction.. Why is it no lE want to ever explore this.. Is this tunnel vision helping our children???? or society.. Whne will we start considering that there are sickies in this world.. When will we stop putting away inncocnt grieving family members ??? These crimes are very different like the ones like the Coleman murders.. LE knew within 2 days that the sick father bought red spray paint and even had the receipt, that he was having an affair, and that his alibi didnt work out... These are the typpes where there is evidence and probaBLE CAUSE... Why do LE go aftyer families where there is no evidence or motive????????????????? I just dont get it...too many of us get caught up in it.. We need to start letting LE know, that we arent going to sit bak and go with the flo.. they need to answer to us.. Why arent they ddoing proper investigations in these cases where there is no evidence???? iT IS WRONG..

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Police say one thing was clear when authorities showed up at a house in Arizona looking for a California girl who had been missing for seven years. The family inside was hiding something.

They were "evasive and untruthful," said Capt. Patrick Maxwell of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Norwalk Station.

When family members were asked to produce a birth certificate or adoption papers for Amber Rose Nicklas, they could not. Maxwell says that is when they admitted the 7-year-old girl was not theirs.

The child had been missing since September 2003. She was in the care of foster parents in Norwalk, California, when she was snatched by three of her aunts. Two of the aunts were caught at the time but a third got away with the infant.

Maxwell says it appears Amber had been living with the same family in Phoenix, Arizona, for most of the time she was missing, but police are still investigating how she ended up with people who are not her biological family.

Authorities got a tip that Amber could be at a home in Phoenix and went there with a court order Wednesday afternoon.

When investigators tried to serve the court order, they found that a woman in the home had hidden the child in a shower under a pile of clothes and towels, said Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump.

Amber's identity had been changed, including her name and date of birth, police said.

Authorities confirmed Amber's real identity through footprints, photographs and DNA swabs. The child is in state custody in California and prosecutors will file charges, Crump said.

Amber Nicklas: Kidnapped California Girl Found Alive Seven Years Later

Girl Found Living With Couple in Phoenix; No Arrests Made

By SARAH NETTERJuly 15, 2010

A California girl brazenly snatched by her teenage aunts seven years ago has been found alive, but a complicated maze of conflicting stories and sealed court records have so far led to no arrests in the case.

Amber Nicklas is back in state foster care after authorities from California , Arizona and the FBI found her living under a different name in a Phoenix home with a couple who initially claimed they had adopted her.

"She appeared well-nourished and all that," said Capt. Patrick Maxwell of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Norwalk station. "She was not enrolled in school, though."

How the 7-year-old girl came to be living in Phoenix is still unclear, but the little girl's turbulent life has been a sad one almost from the start.

The Phoenix Police Department couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

At the time of her kidnapping, Amber, then just a year old, was living with a foster family after having been forcibly removed from her grandmother's care along with several other children. Her mother had already given up all rights to her.

"No matter what we think of the people who did this to her or kept her, we don't know [the] motivation," he said. "The bottom line is that law enforcement took her from the only reality she knows of yesterday."

She was taken Sept. 21, 2003, from a Norwalk Chuck-E-Cheese restaurant by her mother's three teenage sisters during an approved visitation. Two of the teens were caught almost immediately and arrested. The third aunt, 13 years old at the time, got away with Amber.

The two eldest aunts were sentenced to serve time in a juvenile facility, Maxwell said, but in a move that has complicated the investigation into the kidnapping ever since, a judge granted one of the aunt's permission to seal all records pertaining to the case.

When police got a tip about Amber's whereabouts in November 2009, Maxwell said, they had to get a court order to unseal the records. And even then, he said, they only got their hands on portions of the records.

"In hindsight, this case, in my opinion, should not have been sealed since there was a suspect outstanding and a missing child," he said.

Investigation Continues to Unravel Abduction of Amber Nicklas

Maxwell said his department has located and interviewed the third aunt, whose name, along with the others, is not being released because of her juvenile status at the time of the kidnapping. He said it will be up to the district attorney to levy charges once police present their evidence.

"We're trying to figure out who and how this child got to this Arizona house," he said. "We're pretty confident that child has been in Arizona almost the entire time she's been missing."

Maxwell said Phoenix police have likewise not charged the couple who was raising Amber. Unless police in Los Angeles can prove they had something to do with the initial kidnapping, he said, any charges against them would have to come from Arizona.

They were not related to Amber's family, he said.

"They were evasive without detectives at first," Maxwell said. "At first they said they adopted her but couldn't provide any paperwork. You just don't raise a kid that comes out of the thin blue air."

The most recent effort to locate Amber had been going on for months but California authorities zeroed in on the Phoenix metro area this month. Amber was identified by the foot print on her birth certificate.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An Arizona couple raising an abducted California girl kept her out of school to hide her from authorities, officials said Thursday.

Amber Nicklas, who turns 8 this month, was snatched from a Los Angeles-area restaurant in 2003 and found Wednesday night in a home in north Phoenix that also served as a palm reading business.

The girl was emotional after being taken from the home but appeared in good health, police said Thursday. Investigators later discovered through interviews that she was kept out of school and could not read.

Amber remained in protective custody Thursday in Los Angeles and it was not clear if she would be reunited with her foster parents.

Authorities have not released any names or filed any charges but continue to investigate.

“This girl was taken away from the only parents and family that she knows yesterday,” said Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump. “It was very traumatizing to the girl.”

Investigators believe the couple were trying to hide Amber, noting that they changed the girl’s name and birth date and she was found under a pile of clothes when authorities searched the home Wednesday.

Amber was 1 when she was abducted from her foster parents on Sept. 21, 2003, by three juvenile aunts during a visit to a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the LA suburb of Norwalk, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Detective Jerry Saba.

Two of the aunts spent time in juvenile camp for the abduction, but authorities would not release details on why they took the child or if they remain part of the investigation.

It was not clear how Amber wound up in Phoenix, though there apparently was some sort of connection between the aunts and the family there.

“This family has an acquaintance with the abducting family,” Crump said. “They know each other, and that’s all I know about.”

The man and the woman in the Phoenix house said they were from Romania and initially claimed to have adopted Amber, though their stories were inconsistent, Saba said. Amber spoke some Romanian, though English is her main language.

The break in the case came in November when Saba got a tip that eventually led him to Phoenix. Saba on Wednesday accompanied Phoenix police and the FBI to the girl’s home, where a woman tried to hide Amber in a bathroom shower under a pile of clothes and towels, he said. A baby girl and older boy were also in the house.

Authorities confirmed Amber’s identity by comparing her footprint to that on her birth certificate, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Capt. Patrick Maxwell. She was upset at the prospect of having to leave the people she thought were her parents.

“The detectives said to the ’parents,’ if you really care about this child, you need to go in there and tell her everything is going to be OK,” Maxwell said. “They did that.”

The man and woman in the home where Amber was found were detained then released after questioning. A second woman was detained and questioned elsewhere in Phoenix. She was also released.

Amber was returned to the care of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. Officials would not comment on where she would go next. Maxwell said her birth parents are “out of the picture” and he would not say if the foster parents were notified.

I've actually seen it suggested that Amber be allowed to remain with the family that was raising her because that's all she's ever known. Do you think she should be put in foster care or returned to the family that illegally adopted her? The family obviously knew they had her illegally and they weren't schooling her. I know removing Amber from the family was traumatizing for her, but I don't think criminal behavior should be rewarded.

The original articles say that there is no connection between Ambers family and the abductors... Now they are saying that there is a connection... This is confusing and gthe docs are sealed so that we cant know..

I am on the fence with this one until we hear if the family was involved or not...

J4A, it is so sad.. there is just not a good answer.. To think that the child could be ripped from all she has ever known as her famiol;y is heart breaking .. I cant imagine the devestation that will cause her... There is now way that she could understand this... The law was broken no matter how we look at it..

I dont think I cud even answer that qwuestion.. I wud have to pass because doing the right thing and removing her, wud break her heart... lots of kids are homeschooled and do fine.. If she was truly loved and never abused, there is no wauy she will be able to understand thaty she shudnt have been with that family.. I know the answer but I cant say it.. It hurts too much!

J4A...I'm always one for happy endings so therefore I'd want her reunited with the family that was raising her...They obviously love her and the only thing missing is her education...Since she wasn't mistreated I say let her return and start schooling...JMO

Did these parents kidnap her, or just 'adopt' her? Are the 'aunts' who are accused of kidnapping her, her real aunts? Where are her bio-parents?

If these ppl had nothing to do with the kidnapping, and if they put her into school immediately, then maybe she should go back to them. IDK What kind of life did she have with these ppl? Are they citizens of the USA?

I don't think she should go back to them until they are checked out thoroughly.

_________________"Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven" -----Henry Ward Beecher

The thing that is hard for me is thinking if somebody had kidnapped my child as a baby and sold/gave my child to another family. The family receiving the child knows they aren't obtaining custody of the child legally, and possibly knows the child was stolen from somebody else. I would want my child back no matter how much time had passed.

However, this situation is a little different since Amber's bio family had put her in foster care and didn't want her.

The more I think about it, the harder it is to decide what the right thing to do in this case is.

Last edited by Justice4all on Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

I am very conflicted on this. I was just thinking about the possibility that Elizabeth illegally gave Baby Gabrielle to another couple. What if it takes authorities seven years to find him? Should he be allowed to remain with the couple that raised him?

If you adopt a child without going through the proper channels, it has to be in your mind that the person giving you the child may have kidnapped the child from somebody else, or is giving you the child without the other parent's knowledge.

PHOENIX - A girl who was abducted from California when she was just one year old has turned up in Phoenix, and now the family of gypsies who raised her as their own are fighting for legal custody.

The family said they had no idea the baby was kidnapped when her biological grandmother, who is also part of their Romanian community, brought her to them and asked them to take care of her temporarily.

Police say her three biological aunts kidnapped her during a non-custodial visit while she was living with foster parents in Los Angeles County.

“What my heart is feeling right now is so much pain, so much sorrow, that I know she's looking for me,” said Shirley Frank, who has raised the girl as her own for the last seven years. “They told me she was scared and crying, and I just want her home.”

Although it is sad for this little girl to go back into the State foster system, I do not believe she should be returned to the Arizona couple at this time. They obviously knew they were keeping her illegally, as they tried to hide her from detectives under a pile of clothes when their house was searched. They also did not enroll her in school, so she could not be tracked that way.

I agree with your first assessment, J4A.... criminal behavior should not be rewarded. And this couple was not doing Amber any favors. The poor little girl doesn't even know how to read at almost 8 years old. If authorities had been called at the time this couple says the grandmother did not return to pick her up, Amber might be in a loving, legally adoptive family today (and in school learning how to read, etc.) instead of being traumatized by being taken away from the people she believed were her parents.

IMO, this couple is as guilty as the people who kidnapped her in the first place.

AND.... if it turns out that they are connected to her abduction.... well, that another ball of wax altogether.

These folks were obviously hiding Amber, they knew there was a reason to do so. I have to wonder if the grandma didn't put the teen girls up to kidnapping Amber. They were so young, I'm sure they helped take care of Amber as a baby. Whatever happened to the bio mom? I assume she was a teen mom herself or was she a little older, out on her own and just dumped Amber as an infant with her mother.

These people were not doing Amber any favors, it appears they loved her, but they were in the wrong. This child should have been in school, living a normal life. I wonder if she ever got to play outside?